As the title says I'm just wondering if anyone here has swapped in a z31 vg into their 3rd gen and will it bolt up to an RE4F02A tranny? I have an opportunity to pick up a complete z31 engine and ecu. I'm still pondering it and not sure if I'm going to go through with it yet after putting headers on the stock vg and only having the engine swapped with a jdm vg only a few years back and having still under 100km on it but if I were to go through with it rather than swapping the manifolds and going through with all the fabbing involved I've thought or possibly wondered about just swapping in a vg from the z31. Also just curious what kind of hp at the wheels has anyone got out of it from those who have done this swap before?

 

In stock form, the Z31 vg engine w/o turbocharger produced 160 hp, the same as it did in the 1994 maxima. So there is no power gain if you are dealing with stock.

The Z31 engine will most likely bolt to your transmission as that is something that rarely changes on an engine. But I don't know for certain as I have never done it.

Installing a RWD engine in a FWD chassis may require you to change things such as the oil pan. What I have seen on other brands of engines is that the mounting holes for various things such as motor mounts may be different between an early production engine block and later production engines. This tends to happen when the car body changes.

My personal opinion is that unless someone is giving you (not selling) a freshly rebuilt Z31 engine, the hassle of making a RWD engine fit into your FWD Maxi isn't worth it.

 

Thanks Dennis, It's the turbo z31 vg. It was just a thought if I decided to turbo the 3rd gen but I see what your saying. So it may be simpler to just use the z31 manifolds and aquire the rest of the parts needed to turbo the stock vg if I ever did decide to turbo it then.

 

The vg30e blocks are all the same. You can't just drop Z31 motor in. Oil pans are different intakes will work with mods. Fuel rails need some work. To my knowledge I'm the only one ever run the Z31 intake in a 3rd gen. If your going to do a turbo setup Z31 manifolds will bolt on but need some fab work with the front motor mount and a custom crossover pipe.

 

Thanks akurtzer57. So if I ever decided to go with a turbo setup it would be simpler to use the manifolds and get crossover pipes made up and fab the front mount on the stock setup rather than doing a complete engine swap correct?

 

Yes I've ran a setup like this and had it built in a night. If so a engine swap you still have do all that then switch bunch **** over on motor. Motors are basically identical. Internally.

 

Something else to consider (though I realize this thread is a month old): the engine from a z31 turbo will have a lower compression rate. If it's not going to be turbo-charged immediately you may notice the dip in performance. I had a friend that briefly ran his z31t without boost and said it was "doggy" in comparison to even his normal N/A (which has a higher compression).

 

Good to know. I heard the compression was different. I was pondering the swap for the purpose of going boost but it was just a thought. Akurtzer mentioned it would be easier to just get the manifolds and needed parts and go that route if I were to consider it.

 

Interestingly I just completed my NA2T swap (with the NA's higher compression motor) on Tuesday. I google'd for the exact compression ratio numbers. Here they are:

NA = 9.0:1 compression ratio
84-87 Turbo = 7.8:1 compression ratio
88-89 Turbo = 8.3:1 compression ratio